Former Indian cricketer Deep Dasgupta has hit back hard at Australian Test skipper Tim Paine for his defamatory comments on Indian cricketers. Team India won the Test series 2-1 on their recent trip down under against Tim’s Paine’s side. Paine said that Indian players were good with ‘sideshows’ and good at distracting oppositions. Dasgupta’s comments come a big retort against Paine. 

The India vs Australia cricketing rivalry has intensified over the last few years. With the Indian team managing to secure their second successive Border-Gavaskar series triumph Down Under, Paine found himself facing the heat. As India outplayed the Kangaroos in their own home, the hosts’ skipper highlighted how his team ‘took its eyes off’ because of India’s ‘sideshows’.

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“Part of the challenge of playing against India is they’re very good at niggling you and trying to distract you with stuff that doesn’t really matter and there were times in that series where we fell for that,” Tim Paine toldnews.com.au.

Deep Dasgupta has responded to this particular comment saying that the Australians took their eyes off and its their fault to do so. As for the allegations of the Indian team being unwilling to go to the Gabba, Dasgupta said that those were only rumours and no one officially made such a comment from the Indian camp.

Deep Dasgupta Responds To Tim Paine’s Comments

“I don’t think he is making excuses to be honest. After so many months I think he was answering a question or whatever. But having said that, the fact that they did take their eyes off the ball is their fault, isn’t it? There was a genuine issue there, it was not that India was trying to plan up an issue. It was a genuine issue of Indian team going there, getting into a quarantine, into an isolation before a game. It was genuine issue which Indian team brought up and mind you none of the players, team management and coaching staff said anything about it. It was just a hearsay or people generally talking or rumours. I don’t think any players of support staff said about not going to Gabba,” Dasgupta told Sports Today.

Meanwhile, with the Ashes coming up Tim Paine’s captaincy in Test matches is in question and he has thrown his weight behind Steve Smith reappointment as the long-format skipper again. 

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